


My Completely Normal Parahuman: Hogwarts is Magic

by Blackmarch



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Crack Played Straight, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Funny, Hilarious, Spin-Off, an actual story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-03-06 10:17:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13409148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blackmarch/pseuds/Blackmarch
Summary: Taylor and Lisa, after shenanigans that led to them being planted in another dimension almost forty years in the past...have settled down. Had their fun. Done their time...and had a daughter of their very own.Now, its Hermione Hebert's turn to shine in the spotlight...hopefully, not quite as brightly as her mother and father did. She isn't that type of girl!For the full context required, read this.http://archiveofourown.org/works/11508537/chapters/25824003





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The start of this AU comes from this chapter....
> 
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/11508537/chapters/28387248
> 
> Here!

It was a quiet day, at least by Taylor’s standards. Nothing big was happening, only a single pot was on the boil, Squiggles hadn’t escaped confinement and the Behemoth quietly hummed as it was pumped full of enough magic to blow a hole in a small mountain through a jury-rigged leyline shunt.  
  
This was quite possibly her greatest achievement to date. Greater than her body. Greater than her suit. Maybe even greater than the pool at its very best.  
  
Taylor hummed, the sound deeply muffled by the welding mask she’d salvaged from the garage as she prodded at the Behemoth’s power button with a stick. After three to five near misses and fumbles from twenty feet away, Taylor finally pressed it, threw her shields up, and watched it light up with a glow comparable to a small red star’s. Taylor then ooh’d and aah’d a bit as the wax started to bubble and roil, a liquid, blinding, beautiful white and purple.  
  
Using the conceptual link between the toy and the real Behemoth, Taylor had done what scientists of old had once considered impossible… She’d created a perpetual engine, a source of effectively unlimited power…which she was going to use to power her house.  
  
Lisa, before she’d gone quiet and jammed her face into Taylor’s pillow, had compared it to ‘jacking a microwave into a nuclear reactor’... Which was something that Taylor just found silly to think about. It was more like stealing cable. Nuclear reactors gave you cancer, unlike magic. Stealing cable did not give you cancer, like magic... The possibility of sub-atomic disintegration in both of those things, while noticeable, was another thing altogether and not something worth thinking about.  
  
Either way, there were no laws against this. That was the only thing that mattered.  
  
A shimmy backward and a mad, mood-appropriate cackle threw up the bunker shields, dimming the red light in the room significantly as they took up some of the strain and allowed her to take off her mask with yet more cackling. She then started coughing.  
  
And, of course, that was when everything went wrong.  
  
Light. Fire. Lisa's incomprehensible screaming and a jump to the left along the lines of time, space, and eternity...and Taylor remembered that she'd forgotten to carry the one. It was always the one that got you. She'd forgotten that...not that it mattered now as everything settled down. The Behemoth's glow was not nearly so bright. The stench of ozone was almost choking as Lisa escaped up the stairs, gagging on said stench as she made to open the door.  
  
Taylor wasn't far behind her, honestly. Mostly to keep her safe if her experiment had ended up obliterating their little corner of the surface world... Also, she really hoped she hadn't just accidentally destroyed their little corner of the world. A lot. That wasn't exactly heroic...and the thought of it made Taylor sad.  
  
Her dad lived there and so did she. That was enough reason to feel bad...besides the horrific loss of life. That too. Who knew that sticking a conceptual representation of one of the world's greatest threats into your power box could go so wrong? Well, she had obviously...but now she  _knew_.  
  
When Taylor stuck her head out of the hole in the floor she'd found herself in, only to see Lisa throwing up on hardwood flooring, she made a sigh of relief. Over the hacking and gagging noises from her friend, she could hear birds. The gentle sound of traffic and the rush of air. Apocalyptica and biker scene bondage suits had passed her by for another day.  
  
"Well...that was dramatic," Taylor said as she made her way fully out into the building. A building that wasn't her house. An obviously empty one, thank god, but not her house. Not enough carpet for that. Not enough dust either. It seemed that they'd been displaced. "But at least we're alive, and the free electricity is working."  
  
Lisa wiped her mouth, spat, and gave Taylor  _the eye_. She hadn't taken the spacial transference all that well, obviously.  
  
Taylor pretended not to notice, hoping it would just go away if she ignored it for long enough as she, carefully, took a look behind the curtains.  
  
People walking. Old fashioned cars puttering by as a man put milk out on a doorstep...and the  _green_. Grass and trees everywhere she looked...and it was very picturesque. Pretty...and nowhere near Brockton that she could think of.  
  
Lisa angrily hip bumped her out of the way and got some space for her own spot of gawking.  
  
How far had they gone? Hopefully not  _too_  far...the power requirements went up substantially once you got past a certain range... Ah well. Even if it was a little farther than she wanted, she could take something away from this. It was a learning experience. One that she would never forget again.  
  
Lisa let the curtain fall back into place. Her hands clenched into fists, then loosened.  
  
Remember the one. That was all. Yep.  
  
"Taylor." Lisa turned around, her face perfectly flat. "Do you know what you've done?"  
  
"... Yes?" Taylor replied hesitantly. She then began to sweat, and back away as Lisa came towards her with open hands. Hands at neck height, to be specific.  
  
"Oh. You do, do you?" That flat look disappeared, just as Lisa's feet left the floor and she dropped Taylor to the floor in a running charge. Rage, pure and strong. Almost enough for Taylor to reconsider if Lisa had a bit of the gift after all, even as the blonde tried to choke the life from her... "WE'RE IN THE 70's, YOU FUCKING MORON! IN BRITAIN!"  
  
Even as Lisa tried to beat her to death, and got absolutely nowhere, Taylor could focus on one thing only... She'd fallen on Lisa's sick...and her dress was soaking it up like a sponge.  
  
"I HATE YOU!"  
  
It was the better option when compared to thinking over the fact that your quest for free power had ended up in you being thrown four decades into the past.  
  
==========  
  
"I don't care if you think it's a fad!" Lisa roared into her phone as yet more of them rang around her. All of them color-coded in ways only a Thinker, or Taylor could understand. "I want all of my assets in Microsoft right goddamn now! Don't you fucking test me, Wilson! I'll fucking ruin you!" Slamming that phone down Lisa picked up the next, a red and white one that had Lisa becoming all smiles. "So, since you're calling this number, I assume you're interested in further talks?" She then began nodding.  
  
Taylor looked up from her stacks of books. Doing what Lisa had termed economic sorcery upon them, all for the sake of wringing out every cent... It was surprisingly relaxing, once you got into it...the fact that she was actually  _making_  money now instead of losing it was a heady feeling.  
  
No laws against using powers to trade stocks here...it made for a happy pair of teenage girls, yes it did. Better than beating up gang members for pocket change anytime.  
  
"I'll have to stop you there." Lisa interrupted the individual on the other end with a sugary sweet tone. "You aren't the only one that's interested in our phone technology now, you see. We have some pretty lucrative contracts that people have been positively throwing at us and...well..."  
  
Taylor could hear the panic on the other end of the phone. Subtly controlled, but there... To Lisa, whose grin had grown so wide it threatened to split her face in half, it must have been as loud as a declaration over a megaphone.  
  
"If you want a taste of this goodness, we're going to have to..." Lisa took a deep and satisfied breath. " _Renegotiate._.. Let's talk royalties, shall we?"  
  
Taylor licked her lips as she felt the lust in the air. The subtle energy of a minor climax...and the signs of a storm that would, if she played her cards right, lead to a  _very_ fun night for the both of them. "... Wow."  
  
Lisa gave her the finger and a smile...and Taylor smiled right back before she got back to work.  
  
==========  
"... That's a...?"  
  
" Uh-huh."  
  
"Does it...you know...?"  
  
"Yep."  
  
"... Get over here, Dork.”  
  
==========  
"APPLE! GOOGLE! AMAZON! MICROSOFT! NOKIA! I'M GOING TO OWN THEM ALL!" Lisa cackled hysterically from her seat on her pile of one pound bills. "I'M RICH! STINKING RICH!"  
  
"WE'RE RICH!" Taylor shrieked back, not quite so content as to just sit on the money... Which was why she was rolling around in her own pile. It only got  _truly_  fun when Lisa joined her for the roll around.  
  
==========  
  
Taylor, uncomfortably, held Lisa's hair back as the blonde vomited into the toilet. It wasn't the vomit that made her uncomfortable, no... It was most definitely the death threats involved.  
  
It just wasn't fair...it wasn't like she was the only one involved in this mess... Lisa hadn't exactly just  _laid_  there when it was happening after all...  
  
==========  
  
Lisa rolled her eyes in her sleep as Taylor cooed over the bundle in her arms...and the doctors milled about, looking terribly confused about things.  
  
==========  
Lisa took a sip of her coffee as Taylor and her looked out the window. Watched their four-year-old daughter make a perfect circle in the dirt with a stick before she started filling in the borders with what was, even to Taylor, complete nonsense.  
  
They wouldn't do anything... but Hermione was a precocious little thing, Taylor would give her that.  
  
"When does training normally start?" Lisa asked.  
  
"... The basics?" Taylor scratched her head as, contrary to her expectations, a bird exploded in a flash of fire and flame when it tried to fly over the circle, leaving nothing but dust. Hermione looked up, confused...but just shrugged it off and continued. "Normally it's around ten..."  
  
Hermione threw the stick down and raised her arms. Gibberish came from her mouth and the circle started to glow.  
  
"... But I guess it's never too early to start on learning."  
  
"You get on that."  
  
==========  
  
"Now try  _not_ to crush the sto **—"**  
  
Hermione looked up, tears in her eyes as pebbles slipped through her fingers.  
  
"—oh. Never mind then." Taylor picked her daughter up and started to rock her as Hermione began to sniff. "There, there..."  
  
"This is  _hard_..." Hermione sniffed again. "They're just so...squishy..."  
  
"I know, hon. I know... Want some cookies?" Taylor cooed as she patted her daughter's back. "Would that make you feel better?"  
  
"... Yeah."  
  
"Alright then." Taylor stood up, her daughter over her shoulder as she made her way towards the kitchen. "LISA! COOKIES!"  
  
"With milk!" Hermione piped.  
  
"WITH MILK!"  
  
==========  
  
"It's just boarding school, Dad." Hermione rolled her eyes but patted her sobbing father's back anyway, ignoring the slowly spreading damp patch on her shoulder like the professional she was. "I'm only going to be gone for a little while. Not even enough time for it to really matter, once you think about it." What were nine months to what was functionally eternity, really? The blink of an eye. No time at all. Question answered. "I'll be back before you know it."  
  
King's Cross. Ten in the morning. Much too early for this or anything of the sort...not that father cared.  
  
"But  _schoooooool_!" Dad wailed  _harder_ somehow and whipped their head back and forth. Curls were everywhere, so many that Hermione couldn't tell where her hair started and her father's began. "My baby! She can't! No! Not like this!"  
  
They were strange like that. Loveable, but strange... Who was the adult again?  
  
"What did I say, Hermione? What did I tell you was going to happen if you got too close?" Mum, finally deciding that it was time to intervene with an annoying smile, grabbed her father by the hair, wrapped it around a fist, and started to pull... All while people walked past the lot of them, pretending that they hadn't seen anything as they went about their day. One of them talked about how 'progressive' they were, but that was about it. "Come on, Taylor. Off. Git."  
  
"Nooooo!" Taylor howled as mother and daughter worked together to loosen her grasp and they made slow but undeniable progress. Tears ran down her face, but it did nothing to detract from her beauty. She was the type to look  _good_ , no matter what she was doing let alone crying... Hermione looked forward to growing into it eventually. "What if the kids make fun of her!? What if they envy her natural intelligence and easy grasp of economic principles!? I can tutor her!"  
  
"Dad," Hermione hissed as more and more people stopped pretending not to look and actually looked. Embarrassment was something that she'd never get used to. "This isn't your old school!" Thank the Lord. It had sounded like a mess she wanted no part of... A mess that she was sure had been censored for her young ears. "It's the best school in all of Britain! I'll be  _fine_!"  
  
Or so her parents had found. Or, at least, it was the most magical around which was close enough. If they hadn't found anything else to the contrary, it was most likely true. They were good judges of that sort of thing.  
  
"I know you'll be fine, dear," Mum started before, with a swift right hook to the side that made Dad  _blink_ and loosen her grasp just enough for Hermione to skip back and out of it, she continued on as if nothing had happened at all. Someone gasped. "But childhood traumas can last a long time...and she isn't wrong. Thugs are everywhere, no matter how you look at it." Her smile turned up into a positively foxy grin that Hermione couldn't help but return. "But you know how to deal with that, don't you?"  
  
"... Hit it until it goes away?"  
  
"If it works, don't fix it." Mum shrugged as she put Hermione's father into an  _extremely_  uncomfortable looking hold... Uncomfortable to be in and uncomfortable to look at, honestly. But if an armbar and a chest to the back of her head calmed her down... "But please. Don't splatter anyone who doesn't deserve it if you can get away with it. Going into hiding is tiring work."  
  
"I won't. Who do you think I am? Dad?"  
  
"What have you been telling her?!"  
  
"That's my girl," The blonde ignored that cry to give her daughter a wink. "But get going. Before Taylor breaks free." As if to emphasize that point, Dad jerked in her grip. Like a dying fish, inches from the water. "Having the train leave without you wouldn't exactly make a good first impression would it?"  
  
No. No, it would not. "Later, Mum! Bye, Dad!" Not even looking back to see if they waved back, Hermione was off like a shot. Trolley rattling as she ran towards her future.  
  
"Dear Lord, Harold! They're lesbians!"  
  
Hermione kept her head down and kept running towards her future...faster.


	2. Chapter 2

Hermione soaked everything in. The gentle sounds of the carriages occasionally hitting a slight bump. The sight of the English Countryside going past. The muffled sounds of various conversations. Okay, sure. It was like any other English Railway passenger train, but it was a  _magical_ English Railway passenger train! That made it special!  
  
More special than normal anyway. When her dad had started learning magic, she hadn’t had a teacher. She hadn’t gone on a train ride to some fancy magical school that had been hidden away in the Scottish highlands sometime in the Dark Ages. No, none of that. Instead, she’d learned from her own mother’s journals, taken scraps and pieces and fragments of knowledge from everywhere she could to learn in the dark and dank of her family’s basement before she'd started out on her own.  
  
Hermione’s father talked about those days with a sort of pride… Her mother, with a mixture of fondness and exasperation...and then the kissing started. Which is when they would disappear for a couple of hours, off to ‘reconnect’ as they so often did… Better a little too much than not at all, Hermione reckoned, knowing how her parents worked.  
  
The twelve-year-old looked out the window. Saw the landscape pass her by at odd intervals. City one moment, sheep the next. A dark tunnel and a township. Spatial displacement, an explanation for why the train was capable of going from London to Scotland in the space of an afternoon… She then walked away, trunk slung over her shoulder as she looked for a compartment of her own while other, weedier students moved out of her way.  
  
She’d ditched the trolley a while back, after finding the corridors too full to use it in any meaningful manner...and, considering that she only rarely got wide-eyed looks from older students, what she was doing wasn’t exactly uncommon… The featherweight charm. Yes, of course, that was it… From what she understood, the locals had no idea how to even begin enhancing their own strength without several expensive and highly illegal rituals, potions, or items.  
  
Poor things... How did they cope?  
  
Finally finding an empty compartment of her own, Hermione made herself at home. Put all of her things where they belonged—A bit of this and a bit of that, a good deal of which had no identifier besides ‘that thing’, not that they needed it—so that she could start her studies.  
  
Besides the displacement happening outside, there was a good deal of spatial shenanigans happening  _inside_. The whole train was a near total mess of metal and disparate charms work. Work of a sort that her father would have, admittedly, been done within a single afternoon...but only through brute force. The sort of strength to make the world bend to your will, rather than the other way around, while these ‘witches’ and ‘wizards’ did the same thing through, what was to Hermione, subtlety, and guile.  
  
Their way could be, if you were so inclined—Hermione was indeed so inclined—compared to taking reality out for dinner and a movie before you brought it home and got a kiss on the cheek for the night. A kiss that might come with a promise of more later… Her father’s way, in comparison, could be likened to taking reality out to a bar, getting it completely soaked, then buggering it senseless until it agreed with anything you said.  
  
In other words, these two disciplines were completely distinct from each other and, at her father’s age and power, she couldn’t even hope to try and do it any other way than she was used to. Literally couldn't.  
  
Hermione flicked a crystal. Hummed. Frowned. Hummed again until the crystal shook in turn and she nodded her head.  
  
And that was where Hermione came in. Besides the primary mission goal of making ‘friends’ that she’d been given by her mother, she was here to learn. To study. To rip and tear and savage the place of learning for every morsel of knowledge that it possessed before she, like her father, got too stuck in her ways… Hopefully, that would be a while yet, but there was no such thing as being too young to learn~  
  
A knock at the door had Hermione looking up in almost alarm. The crystal started puffing little strands of silvery smoke, almost as if it were a train itself before she stood up and straightened out her skirts. Cleared her throat and kept her head held high as she opened the door, only to see a young boy. A watery-eyed one, slightly on the wrong side of chubby, but just a boy.  
  
She relaxed her fists and removed them from her skirts. No problems here.  
  
“I—” He paused. Caught the way his voice quavered with a cringe. One that had Hermione’s heart melt, just slightly, as she felt the emotions that came with it. “Uh…” Self-loathing and enough self-esteem issues to fill out a month’s worth of papers...and he was just shy. That too. “I’ve lost my toad and I was just wondering…”  
  
“You need some help in finding him?” Hermione nodded crisply and took a step forward, forcing him back into the hallway through sheer personality even as something behind her started to whistle. “I can help you with that. I've nothing better to do at the moment anyway.”  
  
He gawked behind her for a little while before the door shut, cutting off the shrill scream of stressed and tortured crystallines that had started as if it weren’t even happening at all. Decent soundproofing, these compartments. Then, he was quick to follow behind her as she bustled down the carriage.  
  
Door after door was opened. Questions were asked. Pleasantries were exchanged. An especially ferrety looking individual and his bookends were left quietly snubbed. All of it done mostly for the sake of appearances as she couldn’t feel an amphibian—it was a very noticeable thing, amphibian...ness—in any of them. Before she understood how, exactly, several of her abilities were viewed she’d keep the lot of them to her chest. As the society she’d found herself in might have been a century behind the rest of the world at the least, it was the smart thing to do.  
  
Having her dad come into this so early over a misunderstanding wouldn’t be good for anyone. Definitely not…but it was time to wrap this up before it really even began. Good thing she had a ready-made excuse at hand. The crystals were probably done attuning by now… Sweet, sweet data!  
  
“I need to visit the powder room,” Hermione said, almost off-hand as she turned around on a piece, giving the sweating, stumbling boy a smile and a steadying hand on the shoulder as she did. “I’ll just be a moment and we’ll get back to looking for your toad after if that’s alright?”  
  
“Y-yeah.” He swallowed. A handkerchief found its way into his hand and he started dabbing his forehead and face. “That sounds fine. Don’t let me hold you and thanks for—”  
  
“It's no trouble.” Hermione continued to smile as she opened the door to the lavatory, slipped in, and gave him a wave through a crack in the door. “Really.” She then closed it, locked it, and turned on the sink...after plugging it. “Don’t mention it!”  
  
“Alright…” She muttered as her posture loosened and she rolled up her sleeves. “Let’s see where you are, my slimy little friend…”  
  
==========  
  
Trevor the Toad was, as his name suggested, a toad. A toad whose only claim to being special in some way, being his name and the fact that his owner was a wizard. A not so good wizard at this point in time, but a wizard all the same...and, at the moment, this toad was living the high life. Croaking. Ribitting. Quietly sitting in a puddle of wet that someone had left under a seat as he waited for something delicious to pass him by.  
  
But, of course, no matter how great or small you were...such times could not last. The universe wouldn’t allow it.  
  
A rift in the air opened. Purples and pinks. Swirling and sparking with errant bolts of electric power before a hand popped through. Finely manicured and long. A pianist's fingers. A surgeon's with a single, understated ring on the pointer… Not that this mattered to Trevor the Toad, for he was just a toad.  
  
A toad that wasn’t at all happy about how those fingers had caught him around the middle and lifted him into the air. He kicked. He squirmed. He secreted mucus as was his wont but to no avail.  
  
“Got you!” The hand pulled back into the portal, dragging Trevor with it...and then things got worse for him.  
  
Yet more purples. Yet more pinks. Things that would have driven the strongest of men, of mortals, raving mad passed before Trevor’s moist, unblinking eyes. The meaning of life. The many struggles all around the world to ensure that life continued to have that meaning. The truth to whether or not there was a God and what a New York frank consisted of. All things that man was not meant to know, yet he was forced to bear witness to it. Forced to understand this and worse, all in a single moment...and then he was out.  
  
Freedom once more...but at what price?  
  
“I’ve got something for you, Neville!”  
  
Trevor found herself being lifted up into the air, faster than before. Still unblinking and motionless as he was presented to his sweaty owner.  
  
“Trevor! I thought I’d lost you!”  
  
Trevor switched hands. He continued to not blink. He continued to not move even as his owner raised him to eye level. Looked into his own eyes and saw traces of the horrors within with a grimace and an extra outpouring of sweat.  
  
“I don’t remember you being so…creepy though…”  
  
“... Is he really?” The female asked. “He looks fine to me. Maybe he rolled about in something he shouldn’t?”  
  
“... I hope so. Giving me chills, he is.”  
  
Trevor the Toad...croaked. The hold around him loosened and he plopped to the ground. Silently. One of his legs twitched. Stillness.  
  
“I wish I was lying but... I almost shat myself just now.”  
  
“Language, Neville.”  
  
==========  
  
After many, many hours, hours spent with what had to be the most insecure individual that Hermione had ever encountered—when he wasn’t talking about plants anyway—they’d finally reached the school. She’d slipped on her school robes and packed up her things. Fantasized about the reams upon reams of data now available for her perusal even as she shipped off the copies to her father. Shipped them off even while she tried not to fall out of the boat she’d found herself in...and she’d taken more than a passing interest in the castle’s wards to keep her mind off of things as they came into sight.  
  
She was a prodigy when it came to just about everything she turned her hand to—her mother had said so, and so it must be true—but boating had never been a talent of hers. Nor an interest. She really hoped that no one noticed the imprints she’d left on the seats… Neville might have of course. He  _had_ been looking for an excuse to look anywhere but his toad after all...but he wouldn’t say anything. He wasn’t the sort to talk if he didn’t have to.  
  
She felt for him.  
  
Then there were the ghosts. Projections, shadows of the dead. Not quite real, not lost souls or any type of souls at all...but recordings…  _Sentient_ maybe even  _sapient_  recordings of a life long ended. Yet another project was put on the backburner just before she was hustled inside of the Great Hall by a rather severe-looking woman, a teacher that smelled of cats, along with the rest of her peers… One of which smelled like Dark Magic and Fate…  
  
A song was sung. Off tune. Off key. A little too silly for something that Hermione could  _feel_ was going to be a deciding feature of their lives far past the time they left this place...and, after an hour of crossed arms, tapping feet, and lightly rattling silverware—not that anyone knew it was  _her_  doing it—she found herself on the stool. The hat upon her, so far, untamable head of hair...and what she got wasn’t what she was expecting at  _all_.  
  
“... Well.” The hat spoke, its tone dry and tight as, from what Hermione could tell, it tried to come to grips with her mind. “I have to admit… I’ve never quite sorted something like  _you_ before.”  
  
“... Something similar, mayhaps?”  
  
The hat snorted.  _Snorted_. It was a very odd feeling, having someone snort in your head...and dash your hopes all in one. Father would be disappointed.  
  
“Nothing even close, darling. A Lovegood, maybe, but even they aren’t quite so...” The hat mulled the thought over for a while. Yet another odd feeling as Hermione felt her mind get looked through as if it were a filing cabinet, filled to bursting. “Ah. Yes. For the sake of your tender years, I’ll go with  _odd_. Not for any lack of trying on their part, I assure you.”  
  
“... Thank you?” Hermione thought back quizzically, unsure as to whether she’d just be insulted or not...but she was leaning towards ‘insulted’ at the moment.  
  
“And your father… No, your  _parents_...” He chuckled. “They’re the pillars of the world at this point, aren’t they? Got their fingers in everything but the stars, hmm?”  
  
“Well…” Hermione blinked. Ignored the murmuring she could hear startup around her about just how  _long_  she was taking. They could wait a little longer. “Yes? I mean...they  _are_ my parents...and it's only a matter of time, you know?”  
  
The hat was rendered speechless at that. Actually speechless.  
  
“ _There is nothing else they could do but take the stars as well, yes_?  _I can only aspire to do the same._ ”  
  
Even if the words had been those of a child, they had possessed a  _weight_ to them that was impossible to deny. It was all in the tone you see. The inflection. The bend of your mind and the twisting of the world around you. She had come from greatness and she would become great in turn. On her own merits. Her own accomplishments. No coat tail riding for her.  
  
There was no other option. No other course. Not for her...and, the world said so.  
  
“I…” The hat stalled, leaving Hermione more than a little amused as she considered the thought that this had never happened to it before. “Yes. I suppose you aren’t... _wrong_? About any of that? How…? What…?”  
  
“Gryffindor. Please.”  
  
“But don’t you think that we should—”  
  
“I do not.”  
  
“Are you not even going to—”  
  
“ _Gryffindor. Please_.” Hermione repeated. Politely. Quietly. Pointedly. No other house would do. This, she made clear. In these times, with these people...she had her choices. The brave and the foolhardy, the brilliant and the insular, the many and the meek…the cunning and the mistrusted.  
  
They were all fine choices in their own way...but first impressions were everything. The other houses, fine as they were, just to reiterate, were not the sort of introduction she wanted to make. If she was going to be great, she was going to do it in an upfront manner...and without that annoying sense of doing something you  _shouldn’t be_  when surrounded by your peers and authority.  
  
No one would think it was too odd for her to tackle whatever animals happened to live in the nearby forest as a challenge to herself, would they? They wouldn’t mind if she did some exploring in her free time, would they? Of course not.  
  
She was a Gryffindor after all. Just your normal, every day, Gryffindor. A Gryffindor doing Gryffindor things.  
  
“GRYFFINDOR!” The hat complied, knowing that it would probably not be asked so nicely again...and if anyone noticed the slightly higher pitch the hat had during that announcement they made no comment.  
  
Hermione took her seat at the table, near the boy that smelled of Dark Magic and Fate...or near where she  _felt_  he was going to be if she wanted to be specific before she tucked into her meal… Bothering the boy could come later.  
  
She was hungry now...and they had tea! Tea that she drank. Like a Gryffindor...which was the same thing as a normal person, funny enough...


	3. Chapter 3

Hermione, much like her father, was not what anyone would call a ‘people person’. Not at all. Hermione had no illusions as to being anything different. Her mother’s social graces just weren’t for her, no matter how hard the older woman had tried, and that was how it was...even if she was better than her father.

 

She was not a people person...but she  _ did  _ possess the basics of social interaction. Tact. Understanding. Empathy. That they weren’t used all that often didn’t matter. She had them and the ability to utilize them when required.

 

She had enough of these things to realize that Professor Severus Tobias Snape, a full grown man and fully accredited master of potions, possessed none of them...and not even in the oddly charming way Hermione was used to.

 

He was a petty, spiteful, stain of a man that, from what she could tell, only found pleasure in being intellectually superior to school children. A tall, greasy ball of hate and dark magic, with just the slightest hint of regret so far down inside of him that she’d almost missed it. Not nearly enough to excuse how he acted...nor for him to avoid what was coming to him.

 

He had no business teaching children and she was going to make that clear in the only way she knew how… MLA format.

 

“What is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane, hm?” Hermione spat quietly to herself, all venom and promise as her sextet of pens danced to her thoughts, faster than any human (and most machines) could ever hope to go as it wrote out her revenge… Maybe a little too fast, honestly. She might have smelt something burning, a far too common scent in her home. “Tell  _ me  _ to sit down, will you? Think you’re so clever...”

 

Even if the man couldn’t be bothered to be professional, she could. Had to be, really. So, this was going to happen in stages. From the tame to the extreme until a change was done. Either (Professor) Snape cleaned up his act, even if reluctantly...or she saw him gone. And that meant proper MLA format! With every page marked and notations cited! … After this was done. A moment.

 

Five minutes later, her homework was done. Five different sets at exactly three pages each, perfectly written. In one minute, her strongly worded letter, stamped with the company seal (old habits die hard...) before she pushed it into the nearest envelope. Just nice enough to be official, not so nice as to be considered a museum piece candidate, ready to be sent to the Headmaster.

 

Really though...the man should have seen this coming, even if only eventually. He  _ was  _ a Professor in the greatest magical school in all of Europe. Not some hedge wizard. He was accountable to a higher power, even if he didn’t act like it, and the Headmaster had seemed like a very reasonable sort of man. Not close-minded or stubborn... Or as mad as people thought he was, not purposely so anyway, even with whatever it was in his pocket that smelled like  **Death** .

 

Judging from how he’d stood and how the shadows had laid on him… She gave him five years. Seven at the most before the curse on the thing ended up violently killing him... Oh, well. He was near that age anyway. When it was time to go it was time to go. Not much she could do about that at the moment, seeing as she wasn’t her father, so no use dwelling on it.

 

As long as he got the message, things wouldn’t have to escalate. That was all and...why was no one talking? She was pretty sure she’d heard talking…?

 

Hermione looked around the common room, her brows furrowed with confusion, to see people  _ looking  _ back and...was he drooling? Dear lord, she’d known the inbreeding around this part of the world had been out of hand for a century or two, but seeing it in action was another thing altogether.

 

Disturbing was what it was. How anyone thought that having their family tree resemble a ladder more than an actual  _ tree  _ was something to be proud of, she had no idea… Well, this was something she could help in her own way, she supposed.

 

If anyone needed this, it was these poor souls. Genetic deficiencies were no excuse for laziness.

 

“What? What is it?” Hermione, after a period of time where all she got were blank stares, put her hands on her hips and readied herself for a confrontation. Sometimes, people didn’t do well with this sort of thing and it was just best to be ready. “Have none of you ever seen magic before? No? Is it the homework that did it?” She then started shooing them. With one hand, much like you’d do a cat, if only a good bit more magically charged. “How about, instead of sticking your noses into someone else’s work, you do yours, hm?”

 

With a round of collective nods and an about-face, they did so, leaving Hermione free to enjoy her...free time. Nose deep in a book, and hoping that Snape was an outlier and not representative of the rest of the school… Really though. What were the chances of that being a problem? This was, once again, the greatest school of magic in all of Europe.

 

You didn’t get to be the greatest anything by being incompetent. She had nothing to worry about.

 

==========

Hermione’s eye twitched on its own initiative as she started writing another letter. A much stronger one, set in a pair. The sort that only the painfully disillusioned could put together on short notice.

 

Verbatim recitations of a book, straight from the mouth of a dead and tremendously boring man was  _ not  _ how you taught anyone anything. Neither was being a coward of the worst sort, in a class where you were supposed to teach people how to defend themselves conducive to a productive learning environment. If it hadn’t been for Flitwick, McGonagall, and the library, she’d have been gone already. Gone after leaving a review on the pillow, of course, but still gone.

 

There were some things that you just had to suffer through if you wanted to achieve your goals...but a terrible scholastic experience was a bit much for an attempt at friendship.

 

She could be learning at her father’s knee instead, learning about the secrets of the universe, but nooooo…

 

Hermione pinched the bridge of her nose, sighed, and made to write another letter. Something that would probably not amount to much but would, hopefully, make her feel better… Teacher’s resources, maybe? Something that she could copy, then disseminate? … Yes. That sounded about right.

 

If all else failed, she could subscribe them to every mailing list for teachers that she could find and watch as owls swarmed the head table every morning, stealing the bacon and pecking at noses... That would definitely make her feel better.

===========

Okay, she had to admit that this one, this time, was all on her...or, at least, mostly.

 

That broom had been dated. Obviously so, what with the twigs at the end being a frayed mess and splinters showing up along the shaft...but, really, she should have been more careful… She hadn’t been and now look at her. Covered in splinters and sawdust because she’d said ‘up’ a little harder than she should have.

 

It had, hit her hand, rolled out of it, zoomed off at speeds you’d see on your average freeway during work hours, and exploded. Gone up in flames, swelled, then popped like an oddly solid balloon. It had been embarrassing...and poor Neville had been traumatized by it, even after all the encouragement she’d been giving him earlier.

 

_ Especially _ with all the encouragement, she’d been giving him earlier. The rocket science analogies she’d made beforehand might have been ill-timed. Not like the brooms were going to explode indeed… Anyway, thankfully, Hooch had rounded out the number of competent staff members by, instead of persisting with the lesson after seeing a broom pop for seemingly no reason (Hermione cursed her inability to whistle convincingly) she’d put an end to the lesson and herded them all off the field, quietly yelling about how the brooms should have been replaced years ago.

 

Poor Potter though...he hadn’t gone much farther a couple of yards before he’d been forced to stop. She might as well have stomped on his puppy for all the difference it made… She’d have to make it up to him sometime. At least before she left if it ever came to it.

 

Malfoy could jump off a cliff though, that french numpty. Outracing a helicopter? Ha! She’d have heard about it if it was true.

 

Another run of the hairbrush. Another piece of soggy, after shower wood falling out of her hair and Hermione thought she might have been ready for bed. Or, at least, an hour of reading before bed, as was customary. She drew the curtains, flopped down on the bed, and dug under her pillow for a bit of random, light entertainment.

 

“Oooh...today’s a good one...”

 

‘A Brief History of Time’ never failed to bring a smile to her lips, even if it  _ was  _ a little simple…

 

==========

Hermione sat upright in her bed, awakened from a deep sleep, as fully rested as she could ever be as she set herself to work.

 

Her mind had wandered as it did for most people. Bounced and danced in nonsensical ways. But, unlike most people, wandering wasn’t just a turn of phrase. Reality was subjective, and a chance meeting a couple of steps towards puce with an Anthousai had helped her realize something.

 

“Asphodel is known to be connected to the Greek Underworld,” Hermione muttered to herself. “Homer said that it covered the great meadow of the dead, though he was being poetic with that. Persephone usually is preparing poppies for Remembrance day right around now. Wormwood doesn’t really have any connection to Greco-Roman mythology despite its origins and uses in its period of time and geography.”

 

Hermione tapped her fingers on her chin as she fought the urge to get up from bed and pace. “The language of flowers. Asphodel, wormwood, monkshood, nightshade… Bitterly remembered from beyond the tomb? Coincidence, or design?”

 

“Your tomb, if you don’t shut up. No coincidence that...”

 

Hermione froze in mid chin tap and looked over at a nearby bed. Lavender’s, where said girl was busily glaring at her with her pillow over her ears. They then stared at each other for a while until, with a huff, the other girl broke eye-contact and turned her back.

 

In response, Hermione sheepishly laughed and then quickly laid back down herself, prepared to think things over until daylight now that she had finished internalizing that she was sharing a room with someone. Multiple someones at that… She’d need a silencing spell, clearly.

 

Maybe something on the curtains? Something to make them more opaque as well? It wouldn’t hurt.

 

==========

Hermione patiently tapped her fingers against the potion bench, waiting to see how things had changed.

 

She’d sat next to Neville today, the poor boy just about ready to throw himself to the floor as he stared at their, so far, completely empty cauldron like most people would a live bomb. A great deal better than he had been before she’d managed to get him to calm down by showing him how to pin back his robes for ease of movement and safety.

 

Honestly. Long, flowing robes? In a lab? With multiple open flames and Lord knew what sorts of dyes and chemicals? With  _ children _ ? How no one had gone up in flames yet, she had no idea.

 

Kids were stupid. Kids with fire were even more stupid. That was a serious concern.

 

Down to the very second that she ended her musings on Neville and his drastically increased life expectancy, Snape just about flew into the potion classroom, his cloak swishing dramatically behind him...and Hermione didn’t sense a single bit of magic whenever he did that. Which meant that it was all practice and a flair of the dramatic. Impressive.

 

It left her feeling torn between calling him out for his pettiness, or being filled with petty jealousy. She supposed that she got that need for the dramatic from her mother.

 

Once again, she found her thoughts broken (focus) when Snape approached the board and swept his gaze across the classroom, causing Neville to jump in his seat with a whimper. It was only Hermione’s rock steady grip on the boy that kept him from falling out of his seat. Whether forward or back, she couldn’t say...but he was safe for the moment.

 

“Apparently the only group of Dunderheads greater than you...is whoever wrote your books. So I’ll try to explain it even...” He sneered. “More clearly and... _ slowly _ ...so that you may keep up.”

 

Hermione felt her eye twitch at that. All that work. All those copies. All that proper citation. And that was the take away from it all? Her bloody  _ notes!? _

 

Her fingers, the ones that weren’t holding Neville down to his seat, sank into the hard stone of her bench like it was soft butter.

 

The letters...so many letters. More. Five this time, yes...maybe with a compulsion to force reading and consideration? Yes… That was the ticket… Escalation and overwhelming force was the family byword for a reason...


End file.
